“Well for you!” Tessie told him. “Well for you to have so little thoughts in your head, that you can be worryin’ about the words of a song.” She held her hands up to the evening sky. “Oh, the Lord be good to them! Don’t men have it nice and easy?”
* * *
The drive up to Dublin in Father Higgins’s car should have been a treat for Joe. It would have been a treat for any other boy. But Joe was not like any other boy. He had always been different, and in his eleven-year-old mind, he knew that he would always be that way. When they went on the visit to the seminary in the spring, he had enjoyed the day out then. He had loved sitting in the back of the shiny black Ford car with its leather seats and beautiful walnut dashboard. But as he drove along now through Daingean and Edenderry and beyond to the main road for Dublin, Joe could not summon up the same enthusiasm.
All sorts of thoughts were going through his mind about the seminary and about leaving his aunties behind in their neat little house in Tullamore. Although he often felt sad in the house – for reasons his childish mind could not make any sense of – he was aware of being very safe and secure with the two sisters. Apart from leaving them behind, Joe had also left his beloved piano, and it would be Christmas before he would get the chance to play it again.
Hot tears welled up in his eyes as he thought about all the things he would miss about his old life. Then, it suddenly struck him as being odd that he wouldn’t miss his father or Tara. They were like strangers to him and he could hardly remember having ever lived with them. His life seemed to have been always with Molly and Maggie.
His thoughts flitted from one thing to another, then came to rest on Father Higgins’s words about his mother. He liked the bit about her being up in heaven, because that was exactly where an angel like his mother should be. He just wished she had been alive until he had grown up. He might have got to know his father better then, instead of having to sit quietly every other Sunday when he came to visit him at his aunties’ house.
He hoped Father Higgins was right about his mother looking down on him, and he hoped he was right about the seminary. A cold feeling stole over Joe’s heart. He knew that if Father Higgins was wrong – there would be no one up in Dublin to save him.
Chapter Four
Spring, 1943
“I’ve got another little sister, Mrs Kelly,” Tara proudly told her neighbour. “Tessie had her early this morning – so that makes her a Saturday child. Do you know that poem, Mrs Kelly? It starts – ‘Monday’s child is fair of face’. I was born on a Sunday, so that makes me – ‘bonny and blithe, and good and gay!’”
“Is that right?” The old woman said, not understanding a word of what Tara was going on about. “So that’s another little Flynn born today. Begod, that’s how many ye have now?” Nelly was busy boiling flour bags in a large cauldron on the blazing turf fire, and was glad of the excuse to sit down at the table for a few minutes. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and she’d been on the go since six that morning.
Tara tilted her head to the side. “I have one stepbrother and two stepsisters, and two half-sisters, and me big brother Joe, that’s away to be a priest. That makes seven of us all together.”
“Would you not think of moving to Tullamore, to try living with your father again?”
Tara’s red curls flew wildly as she shook her head. “Sure, me granda and me Uncle Mick need me more here,” she said, in a manner more suited to an old woman than an eleven-year-old girl.
The very mention of going to live in Tullamore sent a shiver through Tara’s bones. She had lasted only a week out there, when Shay and Tessie had first got married. Night after night of crying, making herself sick, and ultimately wetting the bed, had ensured that she was returned to Ballygrace and her granda. Not under any circumstances would she go back to live in Tullamore, to have to share a bed with Mary and Assumpta, and to have Sean in the same room. Worst of all – Tara could hardly bear to think of it – had been the noises coming from her father’s and Tessie’s room nearly every night. The smothered laughter, the creaking of the marital bed, and the groans and grunts were the final straw.
She would stay put in her granda’s cottage, where she now had her own bedroom. Her Uncle Mick had moved in with her granda to let her have more privacy because she was growing up. He’d bought a new bed for her – one with a proper mattress – although Tara thought that the old straw mattress on the settle bed had been more comfortable.
“Have you finished knitting the baby’s jacket yet?” Nelly asked, pouring two mugs of strong tea.
Tara nodded. “I took it into school to show to Miss O’Hanlon, our knitting teacher, and she said I’d made a lovely job of it. She says we’ll be learning how to knit socks soon.”
Nelly lifted a quarter of a soda-bread loaf out of her small cupboard, and cut it into slices. She spread butter thickly on it, then some raspberry jam, and set it on the table between them. “I spent ages this morning sieving that damned black flour – you have to put plenty of butter and jam on the bread to cover up the taste.”
“Mick won’t let me bake anything till the Emergency is over,” Tara confided in an irritable tone. “He says that I’d only waste the flour, and we can’t afford it. He thinks I’m just a child, but I’m not. I can bake every bit as well as him.” She took a bite of her bread and jam. “I’m sick of this oul’ war, and the rationing and everything.”
“Sure there’s a lot worse off than us, me darlin’,” Nelly said quietly. “At least we can bake our own bread – such as it is – and we have our own butter and cheese, and jam and milk. We have potatoes and vegetables from the garden, and the bit of meat we’re allowed.” She shook her head. “The ones in England are havin’ a terrible time, altogether. We’re well off, and we don’t know it.”
Tara drank her tea and ate her bread, pondering over Mrs Kelly’s words. She didn’t feel at all well off. Compared to someone like her friend Biddy, she was well off – but compared to some of the girls in her class, she was definitely poor. She thought of Madeleine Fitzgerald, and her lovely coats and dresses, and her father’s car. Her granda said the Emergency had put a spoke in the wheel of Fitzgerald’s car, for they were allowed hardly any petrol to run it. He had nearly laughed out loud the first Sunday they had all turned up for Mass in the old pony and trap.
Tara didn’t think it was funny; the Fitzgeralds were too fancy to use a pony and trap. They had a big house, and nice clothes – the sort of clothes Tara would have when she was grown up and married.
Then Tara thought of Gabriel Fitzgerald – Madeleine’s older brother – and she blushed. He was in the class above her in school. He was quiet and nice. Nice clothes, nice hair and nice manners. When their car arrived at Mass every Sunday, it was always Gabriel that she looked out for. She’d never really spoken to him – just the odd word here and there in school – but there was something about him that made him stand out from all the other boys.
Mrs Kelly heaved herself up from the table, and lifted a pile of old newspapers from the top of a cupboard. She spread a thick layer on the corner of the table. “Would you ever be a good girl, Tara, and give me a hand to lift the pot out of the fire?”
Tara got to her feet immediately. They went over to the fireplace, and, taking the damp cloth the old woman gave her, Tara wrapped it round one of the pot handles. Mrs. Kelly did the same with the other handle, and then they lifted the pot out of the dying embers of the turf fire and set it on top of the newspapers.
“I’ll leave it there to cool for a bit,” she told Tara, panting from the exertion, “and then I’ll drain the water off.”
“What are you going to make with the flour bags, Mrs Kelly?” the young girl asked. “Is it more sheets?”
“Pillowcases, darlin’,” the old Galway woman replied. “I’m going to boil them a few more times, to get the flour-maker’s name off them. When I’ve finished bleachin’ them and they’re lovely and soft, I’ll do a bit of lacework on them. I’m goi
ng to give them as a wedding present to the young girl that works in the bakery. She’s very good to me, giving me a few extra ounces of flour now and again.”
“Would you teach me how to do lacework, Mrs Kelly?” Tara asked.
Nelly took a deep breath. She had taught the child how to knit, how to sew, even how to do basic embroidery – but lacework was a different matter altogether. It was much more intricate and required a great deal of concentration. “Maybe in the winter,” she hedged. “We’ll be glad of something to occupy us during the long, dark nights.”
Tara smiled with delight. She wanted to learn how to do all the fancy things – she liked the things that the better-class families had. She wanted to learn them, because they were the sort of things she would have when she got married.
They sat chatting a bit longer, and then Tara said she would have to go home to get the potatoes on for her granda and Mick. “Mick’ll be in from the bakery soon, and me granda’s been out in the field all afternoon, fixing one of the fences,” she said, “so they’ll be fit to eat a horse when they come in.”
“Aren’t you a grand little girleen, able to cook and do all the household things for the men?” Mrs Kelly said. “Sure, you’ll make someone a grand wife in a few years.”
“Mrs Kelly,” Tara said suddenly, “do you have any pictures of my mammy? Only . . . I don’t like to ask daddy any more . . . now he’s married again . . . and with the new babbies and everything. I don’t think he likes me remindin’ him about it.”
Nelly paused for a moment, her heart going out to the child. “I haven’t any meself,” she said slowly, “but I think I know a woman who could have some. Leave it with me, darlin’, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Mrs Kelly,” Tara said, and closed the door quietly behind her.
* * *
Biddy was sitting on the doorstep waiting on her friend. “Where were you?” she snapped in an accusing voice. “I’ve been lookin’ for you for ages.”
Tara took a deep breath, surprised at her friend’s sharp manner. It wasn’t Biddy’s usual way at all. “I was havin’ my tea at Mrs Kelly’s.”
“I’ve had nothin’ to eat all day,” Biddy said with a sob in her voice. “Lizzie blamed me for the cow kicking over the bucket of milk this morning, and she gave me no dinner because of it.” She halted, giving a great sniff. “An’ I had had no breakfast either.” She pulled her shrunken, threadbare cardigan across her chest, trying to keep warm. Even in the height of summer, Biddy often looked cold. “She sent me out to look for sticks for the fire, so I took me chance to come and see you.”
Tara opened the front door of the whitewashed cottage. “Come on in,” she said kindly. “There’s some cake-bread left from yesterday. We’ll get the fire goin’ and we can make some toast.”
“What if yer granda comes in?” Biddy said fearfully. “He might run me.”
“I’ll tell him you’re helping me to make the butter,” Tara told her. “He always says it’s good luck if a neighbour gives a hand to churn it, so he won’t mind you.” She pointed to the turf basket by the side of the dying fire. “You throw a few sods on the fire, and I’ll go and get the churn.”
Tara poured milk from the crockery pan into the churn, then carried it into the kitchen. She set it down by the table, then she went and got the churn lid and the dash. “There you are,” she said to Biddy. “You can stand there and be doin’ the butter, and I’ll toast you a bit of bread at the fire. Do you want a drink of milk?”
Biddy nodded her head. “I’m not feeling too grand today,” she said. “I’ve got a pain in me head and a pain in me belly.”
Tara poured a cup of fresh milk from the jug and handed it to Biddy. She studied her sad, scrawny friend for a moment. Biddy was often not well. She was always complaining, and a few times at school recently she had fainted. When she had come round, they had taken her home to Lizzie Lawless, although Biddy had protested, saying she wanted to stay at school. Tara would never have told anybody, but really she felt a bit jealous. She’d never fainted, and she always wondered what it was like. A few times she’d felt funny on a Sunday morning at Mass, a kind of dizzy feeling, but it never came to anything. Her granda had said it was fasting from the night before that made some people weak. Tara would love to have fainted – for a bit of excitement at Mass – instead of just feeling weak.
She held the toasting fork over the flickering flames, while Biddy pulled the dash – a long wooden paddle – up and down through the hole in the churn lid.
“I’ll just sit down for a minute,” Biddy said after a few minutes. “Me arms are a bit sore.”
“Here y’are,” Tara said, handing her the toasted bread. She lifted a saucer from the cupboard that held a small pat of butter and a knife, and placed it in front of her friend. “You’ll feel better after that, Biddy. I’ll make you another slice while you’re eating it.”
“Thanks, Tara,” the little orphan said gratefully, spreading the butter thickly. “I wish I could bring you into Lizzie’s house, but she’d kill me if she found out.” She wolfed the piece of toast down in a matter of seconds. “Nora brought a friend into the house one evenin’ when Lizzie was out, and when she heard the next day, she hit her over the head with the brush.”
“That Lizzie Lawless is nothin’ but an ould witch!” Tara stated. “Me granda says she shouldn’t be allowed to look after children – that she only does it for the money.”
Biddy shrugged and bit the ragged sleeve of her cardigan. “She never gives us the clothes that are handed in for us either.” She looked down at her battered old boots. “She got a lovely pair of shoes in a parcel and when I asked her if I could have them, she gave me a slap. She said, ‘Those shoes are not for the likes of you!’ Then she put them away in a box and I never saw them again.”
“Never mind,” Tara consoled her. “When you leave school and get a job, you can buy your own shoes.” She put another piece of slightly burned toast down in front of her friend.
Biddy shrugged and bit into the bread. “I don’t think I’ll ever get a job – sure I can hardly read an’ write.”
“You’re getting better,” Tara said encouragingly. “I heard the teacher telling you when you read out in the class yesterday.”
Biddy sighed. “She wasn’t so nice when I told her Lizzie wasn’t sending in any turf for the class fire. She told me that I was stupid, and it wasn’t worth me while coming to school any more.”
The two friends chatted about school while Biddy did her best at churning the butter, and Tara scrubbed the potatoes and cut up a cabbage, and put them on the blazing fire to boil. She then took a piece of cold, boiled bacon from the cupboard, and cut it into thick slices, to have it ready for her granda and Mick when they came in.
“Here y’are, Biddy,” Tara said, handing her friend a piece of the fatty ham rind. “That’ll fill you up.”
The skinny orphan devoured the meat in two bites, then she plunged the dash up and down in the churn a few more times. “I’ll have to go, Tara,” she said apologetically. “If I don’t gather up the sticks, Lizzie will beat me when I get home.”
Tara stood, eyes blazing and her hands on her hips. “It’s a good beating Lizzie Lawless needs, to see how she likes it.” She moved towards the back door. “Me granda has a pile of kindling he chopped up this morning. He won’t notice if you take a handful, an’ if he does, I’ll tell him I had to use it to get the fire going.”
“Thanks, Tara,” Biddy said again. She always seemed to be saying thanks to her friend.
“Oh, Biddy –” Tara suddenly remembered, “have you finished with me American comic yet?”
The little orphan’s face flushed. “Oh . . . I forgot about it. I’ll bring it up to you tomorrow.”
Biddy walked the half-mile back to the house, hugging the firewood to her chest, and saying a prayer to God, for giving her such a nice friend. Tara had plenty of friends in school, but she was always kind to Biddy, and never left h
er out of games at playtime. She stuck up for her, too, when other boys and girls laughed at her big boots and the old-fashioned clothes that Lizzie made her wear.
If it wasn’t for Tara and Dinny the lodger, Biddy didn’t know what she’d do.
Nora – the other orphan who lived at Lizzie’s – had warned Biddy about Dinny. She’d told her not to go into the hayshed on her own with him. Nora had said to be careful when Lizzie wasn’t about, because he was worse then.
Biddy didn’t care. She liked Dinny. Even though he was quite old – thirty-six – he was always nice to her. He saved her bits of his breakfast, and gave her toffees and sugar sticks that he brought back from Dublin. He was a lorry driver. He drove up to Dublin some days, and went to Galway on others. He picked things up on his travels, although it was usually oul’ bottles of poitín. Dinny hid these in a case under his bed, and sold them to men who he met up with in the pub. Even with the Emergency, and things being short everywhere, Dinny still managed to pick up odds and ends.
And sometimes – if Biddy did what he asked – he would give her things. He would give her a drop of his poitín with lemonade in it first, or maybe a glass of his beer, and then he would tell her stories and jokes. When she was in a heap giggling, Dinny would start to tickle her – and then he would ask her for a kiss.
At first Biddy hated him kissing her, because his teeth were all crooked and his bristly cheeks rubbed her skin raw – but she’d got used to it. She liked Dinny carrying on with her, for no one else had ever tickled and teased or played with her.
Biddy sighed, and hugged the sticks closer to her. She stopped every now and then, and picked up a few other bits from the ditch. She even found two sods of turf, which must have fallen off somebody’s cart on the way back from the bog. Biddy hoped that it might put Lizzie in a better mood, for she got very little turf in. She said she wasn’t wasting money on big fires. She went about the house wearin’ a coat all the time – even in the height of the summer. And she told Nora and Biddy to do the same, she said it was their own fault if they were cold. She expected them to wear thick woollen stockings and hobnailed boots into the spring, and then they went barefoot until the cooler autumn days drew in. Any day now, Biddy thought, she would be able to throw off the boots and go in her bare feet. And nobody would laugh at her, because in the good weather all the children ran about in their bare feet.
Tara Flynn Page 4
